Illegal border crossings from Canada quietly rising, data shows

More than 960 people crossed into the U.S. illegally from the northern border with Canada last year, according to data released from Customs and Border Protection.

While that number is a tiny fraction compared to the migration across the border with Mexico, it represented a 91 percent increase from the prior fiscal year, the data showed.

The Trump administration’s rhetoric on border security has largely homed in on the southern border, which has seen an influx of thousands of families with children from Central America seeking asylum in the United States.

But officials have also seen an increase of illegal crossings on the northern border in the last fiscal year, according to the data. In fiscal year 2017, immigration agents apprehended 504 people crossing illegally from Canada, compared to 963 in fiscal year 2018, the border patrol data showed.

A large percentage of that spike came from the Swanton border patrol sector — along the border of New Hampshire, Vermont and New York — where agents apprehended 548 people in 2018, up from 165 in all of 2017.

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